Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather [Cather #3]

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Late one brilliant April afternoon ProfessorLucius Wilson stood at the head of Chestnut Street,looking about him with the pleased air of a manof taste who does not very often get to Boston.He had lived there as a student, but fortwenty years and more, since he had beenProfessor of Philosophy in a Westernuniversity, he had seldom come East exceptto take a steamer for some foreign port.Wilson was standing quite still, contemplatingwith a whimsical smile the slanting street,with its worn paving, its irregular, gravelycolored houses, and the row of naked trees onwhich the thin sunlight was still shining.The gleam of the river at the foot of the hillmade him blink a little, not so much because itwas too bright as because he found it so pleasant.The few passers-by glanced at him unconcernedly,and even the children who hurried along with theirschool-bags under their arms seemed to find itperfectly natural that a tall brown gentlemanshould be standing there, looking up throughhis glasses at the gray housetops.

The sun sank rapidly; the silvery lighthad faded from the bare boughs and thewatery twilight was setting in when Wilsonat last walked down the hill, descending intocooler and cooler depths of grayish shadow.His nostril, long unused to it, was quick todetect the smell of wood smoke in the air,blended with the odor of moist spring earthand the saltiness that came up the river withthe tide. He crossed Charles Street betweenjangling street cars and shelving lumberdrays, and after a moment of uncertaintywound into Brimmer Street. The street wasquiet, deserted, and hung with a thin bluishhaze. He had already fixed his sharp eyeupon the house which he reasoned should behis objective point, when he noticed a womanapproaching rapidly from the opposite direction.Always an interested observer of women,Wilson would have slackened his paceanywhere to follow this one with his impersonal,appreciative glance. She was a personof distinction he saw at once, and, moreover,very handsome. She was tall, carried herbeautiful head proudly, and moved with easeand certainty. One immediately took forgranted the costly privileges and fine spacesthat must lie in the background from whichsuch a figure could emerge with this rapidand elegant gait. Wilson noted her dress,too,--for, in his way, he had an eye for suchthings,--particularly her brown furs and herhat. He got a blurred impression of her finecolor, the violets she wore, her white gloves,and, curiously enough, of her veil, as she turnedup a flight of steps in front of him and disappeared.

Wilson was able to enjoy lovely thingsthat passed him on the wing as completelyand deliberately as if they had been dug-upmarvels, long anticipated, and definitely fixedat the end of a railway journey. For a fewpleasurable seconds he quite forgot where hewas going, and only after the door had closedbehind her did he realize that the youngwoman had entered the house to which hehad directed his trunk from the South Stationthat morning. He hesitated a moment beforemounting the steps. "Can that," he murmuredin amazement,--"can that possibly have beenMrs. Alexander?"

When the servant admitted him, Mrs. Alexanderwas still standing in the hallway.She heard him give his name, and cameforward holding out her hand.

"Is it you, indeed, Professor Wilson? Iwas afraid that you might get here before Idid. I was detained at a concert, and Bartleytelephoned that he would be late. Thomaswill show you your room. Had you ratherhave your tea brought to you there, or willyou have it down here with me, while wewait for Bartley?"

Wilson was pleased to find that he had beenthe cause of her rapid walk, and with herhe was even more vastly pleased than before.He followed her through the drawing-roominto the library, where the wide back windowslooked out upon the garden and the sunsetand a fine stretch of silver-colored river.A harp-shaped elm stood stripped againstthe pale-colored evening sky, with raggedlast year's birds' nests in its forks,and through the bare branches the evening starquivered in the misty air. The long brownroom breathed the peace of a rich and amplyguarded quiet. Tea was brought in immediatelyand placed in front of the wood fire.Mrs. Alexander sat down in a high-backedchair and began to pour it, while Wilson sankinto a low seat opposite her and took his cupwith a great sense of ease and harmony and comfort.

"You have had a long journey, haven't you?"Mrs. Alexander asked, after showing graciousconcern about his tea. "And I am so sorryBartley is late. He's often tired when he's late.He flatters himself that it is a littleon his account that you have come to thisCongress of Psychologists."

"It is," Wilson assented, selecting hismuffin carefully; "and I hope he won't betired tonight. But, on my own account,I'm glad to have a few moments alone with you,before Bartley comes. I was somehow afraidthat my knowing him so well would not put mein the way of getting to know you."

"That's very nice of you." She nodded athim above her cup and smiled, but there wasa little formal tightness in her tone which hadnot been there when she greeted him in the hall.

Wilson leaned forward. "Have I said something awkward?I live very far out of the world, you know.But I didn't mean that you would exactly fade dim,even if Bartley were here."

Mrs. Alexander laughed relentingly."Oh, I'm not so vain! How terriblydiscerning you are."

She looked straight at Wilson, and he feltthat this quick, frank glance brought aboutan understanding between them.

He liked everything about her, he told himself,but he particularly liked her eyes;when she looked at one directly for a momentthey were like a glimpse of fine windy skythat may bring all sorts of weather.

"Since you noticed something," Mrs. Alexanderwent on, "it must have been a flash of thedistrust I have come to feel wheneverI meet any of the people who knew Bartleywhen he was a boy. It is always as ifthey were talking of someone I had never met.Really, Professor Wilson, it would seemthat he grew up among the strangest people.They usually say that he has turned out very well,or remark that he always was a fine fellow.I never know what reply to make."

Wilson chuckled and leaned back in his chair,shaking his left foot gently. "I expect thefact is that we none of us knew him very well,Mrs. Alexander. Though I will say for myselfthat I was always confident he'd dosomething extraordinary."

Mrs. Alexander's shoulders gave a slightmovement, suggestive of impatience."Oh, I should think that might have beena safe prediction. Another cup, please?"

"Yes, thank you. But predicting, in thecase of boys, is not so easy as you mightimagine, Mrs. Alexander. Some get a badhurt early and lose their courage; and somenever get a fair wind. Bartley"--he droppedhis chin on the back of his long hand and lookedat her admiringly--"Bartley caught the wind early,and it has sung in his sails ever since."

Mrs. Alexander sat looking into the firewith intent preoccupation, and Wilsonstudied her half-averted face. He liked thesuggestion of stormy possibilities in the proudcurve of her lip and nostril. Without that,he reflected, she would be too cold.

"I should like to know what he was reallylike when he was a boy. I don't believehe remembers," she said suddenly."Won't you smoke, Mr. Wilson?"

Wilson lit a cigarette. "No, I don't supposehe does. He was never introspective. He wassimply the most tremendous response to stimuliI have ever known. We didn't know exactlywhat to do with him."

A servant came in and noiselessly removedthe tea-tray. Mrs. Alexander screenedher face from the firelight, which wasbeginning to throw wavering bright spotson her dress and hair as the dusk deepened.

"Of course," she said, "I now and againhear stories about things that happenedwhen he was in college."

"But that isn't what you want." Wilson wrinkledhis brows and looked at her with the smilingfamiliarity that had come about so quickly."What you want is a picture of him, standingback there at the other end of twenty years.You want to look down through my memory."

She dropped her hands in her lap. "Yes, yes;that's exactly what I want."

At this moment they heard the front doorshut with a jar, and Wilson laughed asMrs. Alexander rose quickly. "There he is.Away with perspective! No past, no futurefor Bartley; just the fiery moment. The onlymoment that ever was or will be in the world!"

The door from the hall opened, a voicecalled "Winifred?" hurriedly, and a big mancame through the drawing-room with a quick,heavy tread, bringing with him a smell ofcigar smoke and chill out-of-doors air.When Alexander reached the library door,he switched on the lights and stood six feetand more in the archway, glowing with strengthand cordiality and rugged, blond good looks.There were other bridge-builders in theworld, certainly, but it was always Alexander'spicture that the Sunday Supplement men wanted,because he looked as a tamer of riversought to look. Under his tumbled sandyhair his head seemed as hard and powerfulas a catapult, and his shoulders lookedstrong enough in themselves to supporta span of any one of his ten great bridgesthat cut the air above as many rivers.

After dinner Alexander took Wilson up tohis study. It was a large room over thelibrary, and looked out upon the black riverand the row of white lights along theCambridge Embankment. The room was not at allwhat one might expect of an engineer's study.Wilson felt at once the harmony of beautifulthings that have lived long together withoutobtrusions of ugliness or change. It was noneof Alexander's doing, of course; those warmconsonances of color had been blending andmellowing before he was born. But the wonderwas that he was not out of place there,--that it all seemed to glow like the inevitablebackground for his vigor and vehemence. Hesat before the fire, his shoulders deep in thecushions of his chair, his powerful head upright,his hair rumpled above his broad forehead. He sat heavily, a cigar in his large,smooth hand, a flush of after-dinner color inhis face, which wind and sun and exposure toall sorts of weather had left fair and clearskinned.

"You are off for England on Saturday,Bartley, Mrs. Alexander tells me."

"Yes, for a few weeks only. There's ameeting of British engineers, and I'm doinganother bridge in Canada, you know."

"Oh, every one knows about that. And itwas in Canada that you met your wife, wasn't it?"

Yes, at Allway. She was visiting hergreat-aunt there. A most remarkable old lady.I was working with MacKeller then, an oldScotch engineer who had picked me up inLondon and taken me back to Quebec with him.He had the contract for the Allway Bridge,but before he began work on it he found outthat he was going to die, and he advisedthe committee to turn the job over to me.Otherwise I'd never have got anything goodso early. MacKeller was an old friend ofMrs. Pemberton, Winifred's aunt. He hadmentioned me to her, so when I went toAllway she asked me to come to see her.She was a wonderful old lady."

"Like her niece?" Wilson queried.

Bartley laughed. "She had been veryhandsome, but not in Winifred's way.When I knew her she was little and fragile,very pink and white, with a splendid head and aface like fine old lace, somehow,--but perhapsI always think of that because she wore a lacescarf on her hair. She had such a flavorof life about her. She had known Gordon andLivingstone and Beaconsfield when she wasyoung,--every one. She was the first womanof that sort I'd ever known. You know how itis in the West,--old people are poked out ofthe way. Aunt Eleanor fascinated me as fewyoung women have ever done. I used to go up fromthe works to have tea with her, and sit talkingto her for hours. It was very stimulating,for she couldn't tolerate stupidity."

"It must have been then that your luck began,Bartley," said Wilson, flicking his cigarash with his long finger. "It's curious,watching boys," he went on reflectively."I'm sure I did you justice in the matter of ability.Yet I always used to feel that there was aweak spot where some day strain would tell.Even after you began to climb, I stood downin the crowd and watched you with--well,not with confidence. The more dazzling thefront you presented, the higher your facaderose, the more I expected to see a big crackzigzagging from top to bottom,"--he indicatedits course in the air with his forefinger,--"then a crash and clouds of dust. It was curious.I had such a clear picture of it. And anothercurious thing, Bartley," Wilson spoke withdeliberateness and settled deeper into hischair, "is that I don't feel it any longer.I am sure of you."

"No, I'm serious, Alexander. You've changed.You have decided to leave some birds in the bushes.You used to want them all."

Alexander's chair creaked. "I still want agood many," he said rather gloomily. "Afterall, life doesn't offer a man much. You worklike the devil and think you're getting on,and suddenly you discover that you've only beengetting yourself tied up. A million detailsdrink you dry. Your life keeps going forthings you don't want, and all the while youare being built alive into a social structureyou don't care a rap about. I sometimeswonder what sort of chap I'd have been if Ihadn't been this sort; I want to go and liveout his potentialities, too. I haven'tforgotten that there are birds in the bushes."

Bartley stopped and sat frowning into the fire,his shoulders thrust forward as if he wereabout to spring at something. Wilson watched him,wondering. His old pupil always stimulated himat first, and then vastly wearied him.The machinery was always pounding away in this man,and Wilson preferred companions of a more reflectivehabit of mind. He could not help feeling thatthere were unreasoning and unreasonableactivities going on in Alexander all the while;that even after dinner, when most menachieve a decent impersonality, Bartley hadmerely closed the door of the engine-roomand come up for an airing. The machineryitself was still pounding on.

Bartley's abstraction and Wilson's reflectionswere cut short by a rustle at the door,and almost before they could rise Mrs.Alexander was standing by the hearth.Alexander brought a chair for her,but she shook her head.

"No, dear, thank you. I only came in tosee whether you and Professor Wilson werequite comfortable. I am going down to themusic-room."

"Why not practice here? Wilson and I aregrowing very dull. We are tired of talk."

"Yes, I beg you, Mrs. Alexander,"Wilson began, but he got no further.

"Why, certainly, if you won't find metoo noisy. I am working on the Schumann`Carnival,' and, though I don't practice agreat many hours, I am very methodical,"Mrs. Alexander explained, as she crossed toan upright piano that stood at the back ofthe room, near the windows.

Wilson followed, and, having seen her seated,dropped into a chair behind her. She playedbrilliantly and with great musical feeling.Wilson could not imagine her permittingherself to do anything badly, but he wassurprised at the cleanness of her execution.He wondered how a woman with so manyduties had managed to keep herself up to astandard really professional. It must takea great deal of time, certainly, and Bartleymust take a great deal of time. Wilson reflectedthat he had never before known a woman whohad been able, for any considerable while,to support both a personal and anintellectual passion. Sitting behind her,he watched her with perplexed admiration,shading his eyes with his hand. In her dinner dressshe looked even younger than in street clothes,and, for all her composure and self-sufficiency,she seemed to him strangely alert and vibrating,as if in her, too, there were somethingnever altogether at rest. He feltthat he knew pretty much what shedemanded in people and what she demandedfrom life, and he wondered how she squaredBartley. After ten years she must know him;and however one took him, however muchone admired him, one had to admit that hesimply wouldn't square. He was a naturalforce, certainly, but beyond that, Wilson felt,he was not anything very really or for very longat a time.

Wilson glanced toward the fire, whereBartley's profile was still wreathed in cigarsmoke that curled up more and more slowly.His shoulders were sunk deep in the cushionsand one hand hung large and passive over thearm of his chair. He had slipped on a purplevelvet smoking-coat. His wife, Wilson surmised,had chosen it. She was clearly very proudof his good looks and his fine color.But, with the glow of an immediate interestgone out of it, the engineer's face lookedtired, even a little haggard. The three linesin his forehead, directly above the nose, deepenedas he sat thinking, and his powerful headdrooped forward heavily. Although Alexanderwas only forty-three, Wilson thought thatbeneath his vigorous color he detected thedulling weariness of on-coming middle age.

The next afternoon, at the hour when the riverwas beginning to redden under the declining sun,Wilson again found himself facing Mrs. Alexanderat the tea-table in the library.

"Well," he remarked, when he was biddento give an account of himself, "there wasa long morning with the psychologists,luncheon with Bartley at his club,more psychologists, and here I am.I've looked forward to this hour all day."

Mrs. Alexander smiled at him across thevapor from the kettle. "And do youremember where we stopped yesterday?"

"Perfectly. I was going to show you apicture. But I doubt whether I have colorenough in me. Bartley makes me feel a fadedmonochrome. You can't get at the youngBartley except by means of color." Wilsonpaused and deliberated. Suddenly he brokeout: "He wasn't a remarkable student, youknow, though he was always strong in highermathematics. His work in my own departmentwas quite ordinary. It was as a powerfullyequipped nature that I found him interesting. That is the most interesting thing a teachercan find. It has the fascination of ascientific discovery. We come across otherpleasing and endearing qualities so muchoftener than we find force."

"And, after all," said Mrs. Alexander,"that is the thing we all live upon.It is the thing that takes us forward."

Wilson thought she spoke a little wistfully. "Exactly," he assented warmly. "It buildsthe bridges into the future, over whichthe feet of every one of us will go."

"How interested I am to hear you put itin that way. The bridges into the future--I often say that to myself. Bartley's bridgesalways seem to me like that. Have you everseen his first suspension bridge in Canada,the one he was doing when I first knew him?I hope you will see it sometime. We weremarried as soon as it was finished, and youwill laugh when I tell you that it always has arather bridal look to me. It is over the wildestriver, with mists and clouds always battlingabout it, and it is as delicate as a cobwebhanging in the sky. It really was a bridge intothe future. You have only to look at it to feelthat it meant the beginning of a great career.But I have a photograph of it here." She drew aportfolio from behind a bookcase. "And there,you see, on the hill, is my aunt's house."

Wilson took up the photograph. "Bartley wastelling me something about your aunt last night.She must have been a delightful person."

Winifred laughed. "The bridge, you see,was just at the foot of the hill, and the noiseof the engines annoyed her very much at first.But after she met Bartley she pretendedto like it, and said it was a good thing tobe reminded that there were things going onin the world. She loved life, and Bartleybrought a great deal of it in to her whenhe came to the house. Aunt Eleanor was veryworldly in a frank, Early-Victorian manner.She liked men of action, and disliked youngmen who were careful of themselves andwho, as she put it, were always trimmingtheir wick as if they were afraid of their oil'sgiving out. MacKeller, Bartley's first chief,was an old friend of my aunt, and he told herthat Bartley was a wild, ill-governed youth,which really pleased her very much.I remember we were sitting alone in the duskafter Bartley had been there for the first time.I knew that Aunt Eleanor had found him muchto her taste, but she hadn't said anything. Presently she came out, with a chuckle:`MacKeller found him sowing wild oats inLondon, I believe. I hope he didn't stop himtoo soon. Life coquets with dashing fellows.The coming men are always like that.We must have him to dinner, my dear.'And we did. She grew much fonder of Bartleythan she was of me. I had been studying inVienna, and she thought that absurd.She was interested in the army and in politics,and she had a great contempt for music andart and philosophy. She used to declare thatthe Prince Consort had brought all that stuffover out of Germany. She always sniffedwhen Bartley asked me to play for him. Sheconsidered that a newfangled way of makinga match of it."

When Alexander came in a few moments later,he found Wilson and his wife stillconfronting the photograph. "Oh, let usget that out of the way," he said, laughing."Winifred, Thomas can bring my trunk down.I've decided to go over to New Yorkto-morrow night and take a fast boat.I shall save two days."

CHAPTER II

On the night of his arrival in London,Alexander went immediately to the hotel on theEmbankment at which he always stopped,and in the lobby he was accosted by an oldacquaintance, Maurice Mainhall, who fellupon him with effusive cordiality andindicated a willingness to dine with him.Bartley never dined alone if he could help it,and Mainhall was a good gossip who always knewwhat had been going on in town; especially,he knew everything that was not printed inthe newspapers. The nephew of one of thestandard Victorian novelists, Mainhall bobbedabout among the various literary cliques ofLondon and its outlying suburbs, careful tolose touch with none of them. He had writtena number of books himself; among them a"History of Dancing," a "History of Costume,"a "Key to Shakespeare's Sonnets," a study of"The Poetry of Ernest Dowson," etc.Although Mainhall's enthusiasm was oftentiresome, and although he was often unableto distinguish between facts and vividfigments of his imagination, his imperturbablegood nature overcame even the people whom hebored most, so that they ended by becoming,in a reluctant manner, his friends.In appearance, Mainhall was astonishinglylike the conventional stage-Englishman ofAmerican drama: tall and thin, with high,hitching shoulders and a small head glisteningwith closely brushed yellow hair. He spokewith an extreme Oxford accent, and when he wastalking well, his face sometimes wore the raptexpression of a very emotional man listeningto music. Mainhall liked Alexander becausehe was an engineer. He had preconceivedideas about everything, and his idea aboutAmericans was that they should be engineersor mechanics. He hated them when theypresumed to be anything else.

While they sat at dinner Mainhall acquaintedBartley with the fortunes of his old friendsin London, and as they left the table heproposed that they should go to see HughMacConnell's new comedy, "Bog Lights."

"It's really quite the best thing MacConnell's done,"he explained as they got into a hansom."It's tremendously well put on, too.Florence Merrill and Cyril Henderson.But Hilda Burgoyne's the hit of the piece.Hugh's written a delightful part for her,and she's quite inexpressible. It's been ononly two weeks, and I've been half a dozen timesalready. I happen to have MacConnell's boxfor tonight or there'd be no chance of ourgetting places. There's everything in seeingHilda while she's fresh in a part. She's apt togrow a bit stale after a time. The ones whohave any imagination do."

Mainhall laughed. "Then you can't haveheard much at all, my dear Alexander.It's only lately, since MacConnell and hisset have got hold of her, that she's come up.Myself, I always knew she had it in her.If we had one real critic in London--but whatcan one expect? Do you know, Alexander,"--Mainhall looked with perplexity up into thetop of the hansom and rubbed his pink cheekwith his gloved finger,--"do you know, I sometimesthink of taking to criticism seriously myself.In a way, it would be a sacrifice;but, dear me, we do need some one."

Just then they drove up to the Duke of York's,so Alexander did not commit himself,but followed Mainhall into the theatre.When they entered the stage-box on the left thefirst act was well under way, the scene beingthe interior of a cabin in the south of Ireland.As they sat down, a burst of applause drewAlexander's attention to the stage. MissBurgoyne and her donkey were thrusting theirheads in at the half door. "After all,"he reflected, "there's small probability ofher recognizing me. She doubtless hasn't thoughtof me for years." He felt the enthusiasm ofthe house at once, and in a few moments hewas caught up by the current of MacConnell'sirresistible comedy. The audience hadcome forewarned, evidently, and wheneverthe ragged slip of a donkey-girl ran upon thestage there was a deep murmur of approbation,every one smiled and glowed, and Mainhallhitched his heavy chair a little nearer thebrass railing.

"You see," he murmured in Alexander's ear,as the curtain fell on the first act,"one almost never sees a part like that donewithout smartness or mawkishness. Of course,Hilda is Irish,--the Burgoynes have beenstage people for generations,--and she has theIrish voice. It's delightful to hear it in aLondon theatre. That laugh, now, when shedoubles over at the hips--who ever heard itout of Galway? She saves her hand, too.She's at her best in the second act. She'sreally MacConnell's poetic motif, you see;makes the whole thing a fairy tale."

The second act opened before PhillyDoyle's underground still, with Peggy andher battered donkey come in to smuggle aload of potheen across the bog, and to bringPhilly word of what was doing in the worldwithout, and of what was happening alongthe roadsides and ditches with the first gleamof fine weather. Alexander, annoyed byMainhall's sighs and exclamations, watchedher with keen, half-skeptical interest. AsMainhall had said, she was the second act;the plot and feeling alike depended upon herlightness of foot, her lightness of touch, uponthe shrewdness and deft fancifulness thatplayed alternately, and sometimes together,in her mirthful brown eyes. When she beganto dance, by way of showing the gossoons whatshe had seen in the fairy rings at night,the house broke into a prolonged uproar.After her dance she withdrew from the dialogueand retreated to the ditch wall back of Philly'sburrow, where she sat singing "The Rising of the Moon"and making a wreath of primroses for her donkey.

When the act was over Alexander and Mainhallstrolled out into the corridor. They meta good many acquaintances; Mainhall, indeed,knew almost every one, and he babbled on incontinently,screwing his small head about over his high collar.Presently he hailed a tall, bearded man, grim-browedand rather battered-looking, who had his opera cloakon his arm and his hat in his hand, and who seemedto be on the point of leaving the theatre.

"MacConnell, let me introduce Mr. BartleyAlexander. I say! It's going famouslyto-night, Mac. And what an audience!You'll never do anything like this again, mark me.A man writes to the top of his bent only once."

The playwright gave Mainhall a curious lookout of his deep-set faded eyes and made awry face. "And have I done anything sofool as that, now?" he asked.

"That's what I was saying," Mainhall loungeda little nearer and dropped into a toneeven more conspicuously confidential."And you'll never bring Hilda out likethis again. Dear me, Mac, the girlcouldn't possibly be better, you know."

MacConnell grunted. "She'll do wellenough if she keeps her pace and doesn'tgo off on us in the middle of the season,as she's more than like to do."

He nodded curtly and made for the door,dodging acquaintances as he went.

"Poor old Hugh," Mainhall murmured."He's hit terribly hard. He's been wantingto marry Hilda these three years and more.She doesn't take up with anybody, you know.Irene Burgoyne, one of her family, told me inconfidence that there was a romance somewhereback in the beginning. One of your countrymen,Alexander, by the way; an American studentwhom she met in Paris, I believe. I dare sayit's quite true that there's never been any one else."Mainhall vouched for her constancy with a loftinessthat made Alexander smile, even while a kind ofrapid excitement was tingling through him.Blinking up at the lights, Mainhall addedin his luxurious, worldly way: "She's an elegantlittle person, and quite capable of an extravagantbit of sentiment like that. Here comesSir Harry Towne. He's another who'sawfully keen about her. Let me introduce you.Sir Harry Towne, Mr. Bartley Alexander,the American engineer."

Sir Harry Towne bowed and said that he hadmet Mr. Alexander and his wife in Tokyo.

Sir Harry wrinkled his brows judiciously. "Do you know, I thought the dance a bitconscious to-night, for the first time. The factis, she's feeling rather seedy, poor child.Westmere and I were back after the first act,and we thought she seemed quite uncertain ofherself. A little attack of nerves, possibly."

When they reached their box the housewas darkened and the orchestra was playing"The Cloak of Old Gaul." In a momentPeggy was on the stage again, and Alexanderapplauded vigorously with the rest. He evenleaned forward over the rail a little. For somereason he felt pleased and flattered by theenthusiasm of the audience. In the half-lighthe looked about at the stalls and boxes andsmiled a little consciously, recalling withamusement Sir Harry's judicial frown.He was beginning to feel a keen interest inthe slender, barefoot donkey-girl who slippedin and out of the play, singing, like some onewinding through a hilly field. He leanedforward and beamed felicitations as warmlyas Mainhall himself when, at the end of theplay, she came again and again before thecurtain, panting a little and flushed, her eyesdancing and her eager, nervous little mouthtremulous with excitement.

When Alexander returned to his hotel--he shook Mainhall at the door of the theatre--he had some supper brought up to his room,and it was late before he went to bed.He had not thought of Hilda Burgoyne foryears; indeed, he had almost forgotten her.He had last written to her from Canada,after he first met Winifred, telling her thateverything was changed with him--that he hadmet a woman whom he would marry if he could;if he could not, then all the more waseverything changed for him. Hilda had neverreplied to his letter. He felt guilty andunhappy about her for a time, but afterWinifred promised to marry him he really forgotHilda altogether. When he wrote her thateverything was changed for him, he was tellingthe truth. After he met Winifred Pembertonhe seemed to himself like a different man.One night when he and Winifred weresitting together on the bridge, he told herthat things had happened while he was studyingabroad that he was sorry for,--one thing inparticular,--and he asked her whether shethought she ought to know about them.She considered a moment and then said"No, I think not, though I am glad you ask me.You see, one can't be jealous about thingsin general; but about particular, definite,personal things,"--here she had thrown herhands up to his shoulders with a quick,impulsive gesture--"oh, about those I should bevery jealous. I should torture myself--I couldn'thelp it." After that it was easy to forget,actually to forget. He wondered to-night,as he poured his wine, how many times he hadthought of Hilda in the last ten years.He had been in London more or less,but he had never happened to hear of her."All the same," he lifted his glass, "here's to you,little Hilda. You've made things come your way,and I never thought you'd do it.

"Of course," he reflected, "she always hadthat combination of something homely andsensible, and something utterly wild and daft.But I never thought she'd do anything.She hadn't much ambition then, and she wastoo fond of trifles. She must care about thetheatre a great deal more than she used to.Perhaps she has me to thank for something,after all. Sometimes a little jolt like thatdoes one good. She was a daft, generouslittle thing. I'm glad she's held her own since.After all, we were awfully young. It was youthand poverty and proximity, and everythingwas young and kindly. I shouldn't wonderif she could laugh about it with me now.I shouldn't wonder-- But they've probablyspoiled her, so that she'd be tiresome ifone met her again."

Bartley smiled and yawned and went to bed.

CHAPTER III

The next evening Alexander dined alone ata club, and at about nine o'clock he dropped inat the Duke of York's. The house was soldout and he stood through the second act.When he returned to his hotel he examinedthe new directory, and found Miss Burgoyne'saddress still given as off Bedford Square,though at a new number. He remembered that,in so far as she had been brought up at all,she had been brought up in Bloomsbury.Her father and mother played in theprovinces most of the year, and she was left agreat deal in the care of an old aunt who wascrippled by rheumatism and who had had toleave the stage altogether. In the days whenAlexander knew her, Hilda always managed to havea lodging of some sort about Bedford Square,because she clung tenaciously to suchscraps and shreds of memories as wereconnected with it. The mummy room of theBritish Museum had been one of the chiefdelights of her childhood. That forbiddingpile was the goal of her truant fancy, and shewas sometimes taken there for a treat, asother children are taken to the theatre. It waslong since Alexander had thought of any ofthese things, but now they came back to himquite fresh, and had a significance they didnot have when they were first told him in hisrestless twenties. So she was still in theold neighborhood, near Bedford Square.The new number probably meant increasedprosperity. He hoped so. He would like to knowthat she was snugly settled. He looked at hiswatch. It was a quarter past ten; she wouldnot be home for a good two hours yet, and hemight as well walk over and have a look atthe place. He remembered the shortest way.

It was a warm, smoky evening, and therewas a grimy moon. He went through CoventGarden to Oxford Street, and as he turnedinto Museum Street he walked more slowly,smiling at his own nervousness as heapproached the sullen gray mass at the end.He had not been inside the Museum, actually,since he and Hilda used to meet there;sometimes to set out for gay adventures atTwickenham or Richmond, sometimes to lingerabout the place for a while and to ponder byLord Elgin's marbles upon the lastingness ofsome things, or, in the mummy room, uponthe awful brevity of others. Since thenBartley had always thought of the BritishMuseum as the ultimate repository of mortality,where all the dead things in the world wereassembled to make one's hour of youth themore precious. One trembled lest before hegot out it might somehow escape him, lest hemight drop the glass from over-eagerness andsee it shivered on the stone floor at his feet.How one hid his youth under his coat andhugged it! And how good it was to turnone's back upon all that vaulted cold, to takeHilda's arm and hurry out of the great doorand down the steps into the sunlight amongthe pigeons--to know that the warm and vitalthing within him was still there and had notbeen snatched away to flush Caesar's leancheek or to feed the veins of some beardedAssyrian king. They in their day had carriedthe flaming liquor, but to-day was his! So thesong used to run in his head those summermornings a dozen years ago. Alexanderwalked by the place very quietly, as ifhe were afraid of waking some one.

He crossed Bedford Square and found thenumber he was looking for. The house,a comfortable, well-kept place enough,was dark except for the four front windowson the second floor, where a low, even light wasburning behind the white muslin sash curtains. Outside there were window boxes, painted whiteand full of flowers. Bartley was makinga third round of the Square when he heard thefar-flung hoof-beats of a hansom-cab horse,driven rapidly. He looked at his watch,and was astonished to find that it wasa few minutes after twelve. He turned andwalked back along the iron railing as thecab came up to Hilda's number and stopped.The hansom must have been one that she employedregularly, for she did not stop to pay the driver.She stepped out quickly and lightly. He heard her cheerful "Good-night, cabby,"as she ran up the steps and opened thedoor with a latchkey. In a few moments thelights flared up brightly behind the whitecurtains, and as he walked away he heard awindow raised. But he had gone too far tolook up without turning round. He went backto his hotel, feeling that he had had a goodevening, and he slept well.

For the next few days Alexander was very busy.He took a desk in the office of a Scotchengineering firm on Henrietta Street,and was at work almost constantly.He avoided the clubs and usually dined aloneat his hotel. One afternoon, after he had tea,he started for a walk down the Embankmenttoward Westminster, intending to end hisstroll at Bedford Square and to ask whetherMiss Burgoyne would let him take her to thetheatre. But he did not go so far. When hereached the Abbey, he turned back andcrossed Westminster Bridge and sat down towatch the trails of smoke behind the Housesof Parliament catch fire with the sunset.The slender towers were washed by a rain ofgolden light and licked by little flickeringflames; Somerset House and the bleachedgray pinnacles about Whitehall were floatedin a luminous haze. The yellow light pouredthrough the trees and the leaves seemed toburn with soft fires. There was a smell ofacacias in the air everywhere, and thelaburnums were dripping gold over the wallsof the gardens. It was a sweet, lonely kindof summer evening. Remembering Hilda as sheused to be, was doubtless more satisfactorythan seeing her as she must be now--and,after all, Alexander asked himself, what wasit but his own young years that he wasremembering?

He crossed back to Westminster, went upto the Temple, and sat down to smoke inthe Middle Temple gardens, listening to thethin voice of the fountain and smelling thespice of the sycamores that came out heavilyin the damp evening air. He thought, as hesat there, about a great many things: abouthis own youth and Hilda's; above all, hethought of how glorious it had been, and howquickly it had passed; and, when it hadpassed, how little worth while anything was.None of the things he had gained in the leastcompensated. In the last six years hisreputation had become, as the saying is, popular.Four years ago he had been called to Japan todeliver, at the Emperor's request, a course oflectures at the Imperial University, and hadinstituted reforms throughout the islands, notonly in the practice of bridge-building but indrainage and road-making. On his return hehad undertaken the bridge at Moorlock, inCanada, the most important piece of bridge-building going on in the world,--a test,indeed, of how far the latest practice in bridgestructure could be carried. It was a spectacularundertaking by reason of its very size, andBartley realized that, whatever else he mightdo, he would probably always be known asthe engineer who designed the great MoorlockBridge, the longest cantilever in existence.Yet it was to him the least satisfactory thinghe had ever done. He was cramped in everyway by a niggardly commission, and wasusing lighter structural material than hethought proper. He had vexations enough,too, with his work at home. He had severalbridges under way in the United States, andthey were always being held up by strikes anddelays resulting from a general industrial unrest.

Though Alexander often told himself hehad never put more into his work than he haddone in the last few years, he had to admitthat he had never got so little out of it.He was paying for success, too, in the demandsmade on his time by boards of civic enterpriseand committees of public welfare. The obligationsimposed by his wife's fortune and positionwere sometimes distracting to a man whofollowed his profession, and he wasexpected to be interested in a great manyworthy endeavors on her account as well ason his own. His existence was becoming anetwork of great and little details. He hadexpected that success would bring himfreedom and power; but it had brought onlypower that was in itself another kind ofrestraint. He had always meant to keep hispersonal liberty at all costs, as old MacKeller,his first chief, had done, and not, like somany American engineers, to become a partof a professional movement, a cautious boardmember, a Nestor de pontibus. He happenedto be engaged in work of public utility, buthe was not willing to become what is called apublic man. He found himself living exactlythe kind of life he had determined to escape.What, he asked himself, did he want withthese genial honors and substantial comforts?Hardships and difficulties he had carriedlightly; overwork had not exhausted him; but thisdead calm of middle life which confronted him,--of that he was afraid. He was not ready for it. It was like being buried alive. In his youthhe would not have believed such a thing possible.The one thing he had really wanted all his lifewas to be free; and there was still somethingunconquered in him, something besides thestrong work-horse that his profession had made of him.He felt rich to-night in the possession of thatunstultified survival; in the light of hisexperience, it was more precious than honorsor achievement. In all those busy, successfulyears there had been nothing so good as thishour of wild light-heartedness. This feelingwas the only happiness that was real to him,and such hours were the only ones in whichhe could feel his own continuous identity--feel the boy he had been in the rough days ofthe old West, feel the youth who had workedhis way across the ocean on a cattle-ship andgone to study in Paris without a dollar in hispocket. The man who sat in his offices inBoston was only a powerful machine. Underthe activities of that machine the person who,in such moments as this, he felt to be himself,was fading and dying. He remembered how,when he was a little boy and his fathercalled him in the morning, he used to leapfrom his bed into the full consciousness ofhimself. That consciousness was Life itself.Whatever took its place, action, reflection,the power of concentrated thought, were onlyfunctions of a mechanism useful to society;things that could be bought in the market.There was only one thing that had anabsolute value for each individual, and it wasjust that original impulse, that internal heat,that feeling of one's self in one's own breast.

When Alexander walked back to his hotel,the red and green lights were blinkingalong the docks on the farther shore,and the soft white stars were shiningin the wide sky above the river.

The next night, and the next, Alexanderrepeated this same foolish performance.It was always Miss Burgoyne whom he startedout to find, and he got no farther than theTemple gardens and the Embankment. It wasa pleasant kind of loneliness. To a man whowas so little given to reflection, whose dreamsalways took the form of definite ideas,reaching into the future, there was a seductiveexcitement in renewing old experiences inimagination. He started out upon these walkshalf guiltily, with a curious longing andexpectancy which were wholly gratified bysolitude. Solitude, but not solitariness;for he walked shoulder to shoulder with ashadowy companion--not little Hilda Burgoyne,by any means, but some one vastly dearer to himthan she had ever been--his own young self,the youth who had waited for him upon thesteps of the British Museum that night, andwho, though he had tried to pass so quietly,had known him and come down and linkedan arm in his.

It was not until long afterward thatAlexander learned that for him this youthwas the most dangerous of companions.

One Sunday evening, at Lady Walford's,Alexander did at last meet Hilda Burgoyne.Mainhall had told him that she would probablybe there. He looked about for her rathernervously, and finally found her at the fartherend of the large drawing-room, the centre ofa circle of men, young and old. She wasapparently telling them a story. They wereall laughing and bending toward her. Whenshe saw Alexander, she rose quickly and putout her hand. The other men drew back alittle to let him approach.

"Mr. Alexander! I am delighted. Have you beenin London long?"

Bartley bowed, somewhat laboriously,over her hand. "Long enough to have seenyou more than once. How fine it all is!"

She laughed as if she were pleased. "I'm gladyou think so. I like it. Won't you join us here?"

"Miss Burgoyne was just telling us abouta donkey-boy she had in Galway last summer,"Sir Harry Towne explained as the circleclosed up again. Lord Westmere strokedhis long white mustache with his bloodlesshand and looked at Alexander blankly.Hilda was a good story-teller. She wassitting on the edge of her chair, as if shehad alighted there for a moment only.Her primrose satin gown seemed like a soft sheathfor her slender, supple figure, and its delicatecolor suited her white Irish skin and brownhair. Whatever she wore, people felt thecharm of her active, girlish body with itsslender hips and quick, eager shoulders.Alexander heard little of the story, but hewatched Hilda intently. She must certainly,he reflected, be thirty, and he was honestlydelighted to see that the years had treated herso indulgently. If her face had changed at all,it was in a slight hardening of the mouth--still eager enough to be very disconcertingat times, he felt--and in an added air of self-possession and self-reliance. She carried herhead, too, a little more resolutely.

When the story was finished, Miss Burgoyneturned pointedly to Alexander, and theother men drifted away.

"I thought I saw you in MacConnell's boxwith Mainhall one evening, but I supposedyou had left town before this."

She looked at him frankly and cordially,as if he were indeed merely an old friendwhom she was glad to meet again.

"No, I've been mooning about here."

Hilda laughed gayly. "Mooning! I seeyou mooning! You must be the busiest manin the world. Time and success have donewell by you, you know. You're handsomerthan ever and you've gained a grand manner."

Alexander blushed and bowed. "Time andsuccess have been good friends to both of us. Aren't you tremendously pleased with yourself?"

She laughed again and shrugged her shoulders."Oh, so-so. But I want to hear about you.Several years ago I read such a lot in thepapers about the wonderful things you didin Japan, and how the Emperor decorated you.What was it, Commander of the Order ofthe Rising Sun? That sounds like `TheMikado.' And what about your new bridge--in Canada, isn't it, and it's to be the longestone in the world and has some queer name Ican't remember."

Bartley shook his head and smiled drolly."Since when have you been interested inbridges? Or have you learned to be interestedin everything? And is that a part of success?"

"Why, how absurd! As if I were notalways interested!" Hilda exclaimed.

"Well, I think we won't talk about bridges here,at any rate." Bartley looked down at the toeof her yellow slipper which was tapping the rugimpatiently under the hem of her gown."But I wonder whether you'd think me impertinentif I asked you to let me come to see you sometimeand tell you about them?"

"Why should I? Ever so many peoplecome on Sunday afternoons."

"I know. Mainhall offered to take me.But you must know that I've been in Londonseveral times within the last few years, andyou might very well think that just now is arather inopportune time--"

She cut him short. "Nonsense. One of thepleasantest things about success is that itmakes people want to look one up, if that'swhat you mean. I'm like every one else--more agreeable to meet when things are goingwell with me. Don't you suppose it gives meany pleasure to do something that people like?"

"Does it? Oh, how fine it all is, yourcoming on like this! But I didn't want you tothink it was because of that I wanted to see you."He spoke very seriously and looked down at the floor.

Hilda studied him in wide-eyed astonishmentfor a moment, and then broke into a low,amused laugh. "My dear Mr. Alexander,you have strange delicacies. If you please,that is exactly why you wish to see me.We understand that, do we not?"

Bartley looked ruffled and turned the sealring on his little finger about awkwardly.

Hilda leaned back in her chair, watchinghim indulgently out of her shrewd eyes."Come, don't be angry, but don't try to posefor me, or to be anything but what you are.If you care to come, it's yourself I'll be gladto see, and you thinking well of yourself.Don't try to wear a cloak of humility; itdoesn't become you. Stalk in as you are anddon't make excuses. I'm not accustomed toinquiring into the motives of my guests. Thatwould hardly be safe, even for Lady Walford,in a great house like this."

"Sunday afternoon, then," said Alexander,as she rose to join her hostess."How early may I come?"

She gave him her hand and flushed andlaughed. He bent over it a little stiffly.She went away on Lady Walford's arm, and as hestood watching her yellow train glide downthe long floor he looked rather sullen. He feltthat he had not come out of it very brilliantly.

CHAPTER IV

On Sunday afternoon Alexander rememberedMiss Burgoyne's invitation and called at herapartment. He found it a delightful littleplace and he met charming people there.Hilda lived alone, attended by a very prettyand competent French servant who answeredthe door and brought in the tea. Alexanderarrived early, and some twenty-odd peopledropped in during the course of the afternoon.Hugh MacConnell came with his sister,and stood about, managing his tea-cupawkwardly and watching every one out of hisdeep-set, faded eyes. He seemed to havemade a resolute effort at tidiness of attire,and his sister, a robust, florid woman with asplendid joviality about her, kept eyeing hisfreshly creased clothes apprehensively. It wasnot very long, indeed, before his coat hungwith a discouraged sag from his gaunt shouldersand his hair and beard were rumpled asif he had been out in a gale. His dry humorwent under a cloud of absent-minded kindlinesswhich, Mainhall explained, always overtookhim here. He was never so witty or sosharp here as elsewhere, and Alexanderthought he behaved as if he were an elderlyrelative come in to a young girl's party.

The editor of a monthly review camewith his wife, and Lady Kildare, the Irishphilanthropist, brought her young nephew,Robert Owen, who had come up from Oxford,and who was visibly excited and gratifiedby his first introduction to Miss Burgoyne. Hilda was very nice to him, and he sat onthe edge of his chair, flushed with hisconversational efforts and moving his chinabout nervously over his high collar.Sarah Frost, the novelist, came with her husband,a very genial and placid old scholar who hadbecome slightly deranged upon the subject ofthe fourth dimension. On other matters hewas perfectly rational and he was easy andpleasing in conversation. He looked verymuch like Agassiz, and his wife, in herold-fashioned black silk dress, overskirted andtight-sleeved, reminded Alexander of the earlypictures of Mrs. Browning. Hilda seemedparticularly fond of this quaint couple,and Bartley himself was so pleased with theirmild and thoughtful converse that he took hisleave when they did, and walked with themover to Oxford Street, where they waited fortheir 'bus. They asked him to come to seethem in Chelsea, and they spoke very tenderlyof Hilda. "She's a dear, unworldly littlething," said the philosopher absently;"more like the stage people of my young days--folk ofsimple manners. There aren't many such left.American tours have spoiled them, I'm afraid.They have all grown very smart. Lamb wouldn'tcare a great deal about many of them, I fancy."

Alexander went back to Bedford Squarea second Sunday afternoon. He had a longtalk with MacConnell, but he got no word withHilda alone, and he left in a discontentedstate of mind. For the rest of the weekhe was nervous and unsettled, and keptrushing his work as if he were preparing forimmediate departure. On Thursday afternoonhe cut short a committee meeting, jumped intoa hansom, and drove to Bedford Square.He sent up his card, but it came back tohim with a message scribbled across the front.

So sorry I can't see you. Will you come anddine with me Sunday evening at half-past seven?

H.B.

When Bartley arrived at Bedford Square onSunday evening, Marie, the pretty littleFrench girl, met him at the door and conductedhim upstairs. Hilda was writing in herliving-room, under the light of a tall desk lamp.Bartley recognized the primrose satin gownshe had worn that first evening at Lady Walford's.

"I'm so pleased that you think me worththat yellow dress, you know," he said, takingher hand and looking her over admiringlyfrom the toes of her canary slippers to hersmoothly parted brown hair. "Yes, it's very,very pretty. Every one at Lady Walford's waslooking at it."

Hilda curtsied. "Is that why you think itpretty? I've no need for fine clothes in Mac'splay this time, so I can afford a few duddiesfor myself. It's owing to that same chance,by the way, that I am able to ask you to dinner.I don't need Marie to dress me this season,so she keeps house for me, and my little Galwaygirl has gone home for a visit. I should neverhave asked you if Molly had been here,for I remember you don't like English cookery."

Alexander walked about the room, looking at everything.

"I haven't had a chance yet to tell youwhat a jolly little place I think this is.Where did you get those etchings?They're quite unusual, aren't they?"

"Lady Westmere sent them to me from Romelast Christmas. She is very much interestedin the American artist who did them.They are all sketches made about the Villad'Este, you see. He painted that group ofcypresses for the Salon, and it was boughtfor the Luxembourg."

Alexander walked over to the bookcases."It's the air of the whole place here thatI like. You haven't got anything that doesn'tbelong. Seems to me it looks particularlywell to-night. And you have so many flowers.I like these little yellow irises."

"Rooms always look better by lamplight--in London, at least. Though Marie is clean--really clean, as the French are. Why doyou look at the flowers so critically? Mariegot them all fresh in Covent Garden marketyesterday morning."

"I'm glad," said Alexander simply."I can't tell you how glad I am to haveyou so pretty and comfortable here, and to hearevery one saying such nice things about you.You've got awfully nice friends," he addedhumbly, picking up a little jade elephant fromher desk. "Those fellows are all very loyal,even Mainhall. They don't talk of any oneelse as they do of you."

Hilda sat down on the couch and saidseriously: "I've a neat little sum in the bank,too, now, and I own a mite of a hut inGalway. It's not worth much, but I love it.I've managed to save something every year,and that with helping my three sisters nowand then, and tiding poor Cousin Mike overbad seasons. He's that gifted, you know,but he will drink and loses more goodengagements than other fellows ever get.And I've traveled a bit, too."

It was a tiny room, hung all round withFrench prints, above which ran a shelf fullof china. Hilda saw Alexander look up at it.

"It's not particularly rare," she said,"but some of it was my mother's. Heaven knowshow she managed to keep it whole, through allour wanderings, or in what baskets and bundlesand theatre trunks it hasn't been stowed away.We always had our tea out of those blue cupswhen I was a little girl, sometimes in thequeerest lodgings, and sometimes on a trunkat the theatre--queer theatres, for that matter."

It was a wonderful little dinner. There waswatercress soup, and sole, and a delightfulomelette stuffed with mushrooms and truffles,and two small rare ducklings, and artichokes,and a dry yellow Rhone wine of which Bartleyhad always been very fond. He drank itappreciatively and remarked that there wasstill no other he liked so well.

"I have some champagne for you, too. Idon't drink it myself, but I like to see itbehave when it's poured. There is nothingelse that looks so jolly."

"Thank you. But I don't like it so well asthis." Bartley held the yellow wine againstthe light and squinted into it as he turned theglass slowly about. "You have traveled, yousay. Have you been in Paris much these lateyears?"

Hilda lowered one of the candle-shadescarefully. "Oh, yes, I go over to Paris often.There are few changes in the old Quarter.Dear old Madame Anger is dead--but perhapsyou don't remember her?"

"Don't I, though! I'm so sorry to hear it.How did her son turn out? I remember howshe saved and scraped for him, and how healways lay abed till ten o'clock. He was thelaziest fellow at the Beaux Arts; and that'ssaying a good deal."

"Well, he is still clever and lazy. Theysay he is a good architect when he will work.He's a big, handsome creature, and he hatesAmericans as much as ever. But Angel--doyou remember Angel?"

"Perfectly. Did she ever get back toBrittany and her bains de mer?"

"Ah, no. Poor Angel! She got tired ofcooking and scouring the coppers in MadameAnger's little kitchen, so she ran away with asoldier, and then with another soldier.Too bad! She still lives about the Quarter,and, though there is always a soldat, she hasbecome a blanchisseuse de fin. She did my blousesbeautifully the last time I was there, and wasso delighted to see me again. I gave her allmy old clothes, even my old hats, though shealways wears her Breton headdress. Her hairis still like flax, and her blue eyes are just likea baby's, and she has the same three freckleson her little nose, and talks about going backto her bains de mer."

Bartley looked at Hilda across the yellowlight of the candles and broke into a low,happy laugh. "How jolly it was being young,Hilda! Do you remember that first walk wetook together in Paris? We walked down tothe Place Saint-Michel to buy some lilacs.Do you remember how sweet they smelled?"

"Indeed I do. Come, we'll have ourcoffee in the other room, and you can smoke."

Hilda rose quickly, as if she wished tochange the drift of their talk, but Bartleyfound it pleasant to continue it.

"What a warm, soft spring evening thatwas," he went on, as they sat down in thestudy with the coffee on a little table betweenthem; "and the sky, over the bridges, was justthe color of the lilacs. We walked on downby the river, didn't we?"

Hilda laughed and looked at him questioningly. He saw a gleam in her eyes that he rememberedeven better than the episode he was recalling.

"I think we did," she answered demurely. "It was on the Quai we met that womanwho was crying so bitterly. I gave her a sprayof lilac, I remember, and you gave her afranc. I was frightened at your prodigality."

"I expect it was the last franc I had.What a strong brown face she had, and verytragic. She looked at us with such despair andlonging, out from under her black shawl.What she wanted from us was neither ourflowers nor our francs, but just our youth.I remember it touched me so. I would havegiven her some of mine off my back, if I could.I had enough and to spare then," Bartley mused,and looked thoughtfully at his cigar.

They were both remembering what thewoman had said when she took the money:"God give you a happy love!" It was not inthe ingratiating tone of the habitual beggar:it had come out of the depths of the poor creature'ssorrow, vibrating with pity for their youthand despair at the terribleness of human life;it had the anguish of a voice of prophecy. Until she spoke, Bartley had not realizedthat he was in love. The strange woman,and her passionate sentence that rangout so sharply, had frightened them both.They went home sadly with the lilacs, backto the Rue Saint-Jacques, walking very slowly,arm in arm. When they reached the housewhere Hilda lodged, Bartley went across thecourt with her, and up the dark old stairs tothe third landing; and there he had kissed herfor the first time. He had shut his eyes togive him the courage, he remembered, andshe had trembled so--

Bartley started when Hilda rang the littlebell beside her. "Dear me, why did you dothat? I had quite forgotten--I was back there.It was very jolly," he murmured lazily, asMarie came in to take away the coffee.

Hilda laughed and went over to thepiano. "Well, we are neither of us twentynow, you know. Have I told you about mynew play? Mac is writing one; really for methis time. You see, I'm coming on."

He was looking at her round slender figure,as she stood by the piano, turning over apile of music, and he felt the energy in everyline of it.

"No, it isn't a dress-up part. He doesn'tseem to fancy me in fine feathers. He saysI ought to be minding the pigs at home, and Isuppose I ought. But he's given me somegood Irish songs. Listen."

She sat down at the piano and sang.When she finished, Alexander shook himselfout of a reverie.

"Sing `The Harp That Once,' Hilda.You used to sing it so well."

"Nonsense. Of course I can't really sing,except the way my mother and grandmotherdid before me. Most actresses nowadayslearn to sing properly, so I tried a master;but he confused me, just!"

Alexander laughed. "All the same, sing it, Hilda."

Hilda started up from the stool andmoved restlessly toward the window."It's really too warm in this room to sing.Don't you feel it?"

Alexander went over and opened thewindow for her. "Aren't you afraid to let thewind low like that on your neck? Can't I geta scarf or something?"

"Ask a theatre lady if she's afraid of drafts!"Hilda laughed. "But perhaps, as I'm so warm--give me your handkerchief. There, just in front."He slipped the corners carefully under her shoulder-straps."There, that will do. It looks like a bib."She pushed his hand away quickly and stoodlooking out into the deserted square."Isn't London a tomb on Sunday night?"

Alexander caught the agitation in her voice.He stood a little behind her, and tried tosteady himself as he said: "It's soft and misty.See how white the stars are."

For a long time neither Hilda nor Bartley spoke.They stood close together, looking outinto the wan, watery sky, breathing alwaysmore quickly and lightly, and it seemed as ifall the clocks in the world had stopped.Suddenly he moved the clenched hand he heldbehind him and dropped it violently athis side. He felt a tremor run throughthe slender yellow figure in front of him.

She caught his handkerchief from herthroat and thrust it at him without turninground. "Here, take it. You must go now,Bartley. Good-night."

Bartley leaned over her shoulder, withouttouching her, and whispered in her ear:"You are giving me a chance?"

"Yes. Take it and go. This isn't fair,you know. Good-night."

Alexander unclenched the two hands athis sides. With one he threw down thewindow and with the other--still standingbehind her--he drew her back against him.

She uttered a little cry, threw her armsover her head, and drew his face down to hers."Are you going to let me love you a little, Bartley?"she whispered.

CHAPTER V

It was the afternoon of the day before Christmas. Mrs. Alexander had been driving about all the morning,leaving presents at the houses of her friends.She lunched alone, and as she rose from the tableshe spoke to the butler: "Thomas, I am going downto the kitchen now to see Norah. In half an houryou are to bring the greens up from the cellarand put them in the library. Mr. Alexanderwill be home at three to hang them himself.Don't forget the stepladder, and plenty of tacksand string. You may bring the azaleas upstairs.Take the white one to Mr. Alexander's study.Put the two pink ones in this room,and the red one in the drawing-room."

A little before three o'clock Mrs. Alexanderwent into the library to see that everythingwas ready. She pulled the window shades high,for the weather was dark and stormy,and there was little light, even in the streets.A foot of snow had fallen during the morning,and the wide space over the river wasthick with flying flakes that fell andwreathed the masses of floating ice.Winifred was standing by the window whenshe heard the front door open. She hurriedto the hall as Alexander came stamping in,covered with snow. He kissed her joyfullyand brushed away the snow that fell on her hair.

"I wish I had asked you to meet me atthe office and walk home with me, Winifred.The Common is beautiful. The boys have sweptthe snow off the pond and are skating furiously.Did the cyclamens come?"

"Not for Christmas-time. I'll go upstairs andchange my coat. I shall be down in a moment. Tell Thomas to get everything ready."

When Alexander reappeared, he took his wife'sarm and went with her into the library."When did the azaleas get here?Thomas has got the white one in my room."

"I told him to put it there."

"But, I say, it's much the finest of the lot!"

"That's why I had it put there. There istoo much color in that room for a red one,you know."

Bartley began to sort the greens. "It looksvery splendid there, but I feel piggishto have it. However, we really spend moretime there than anywhere else in the house.Will you hand me the holly?"

He climbed up the stepladder, which creakedunder his weight, and began to twist thetough stems of the holly into the frame-work of the chandelier.

"I forgot to tell you that I had a letterfrom Wilson, this morning, explaining histelegram. He is coming on because an olduncle up in Vermont has conveniently diedand left Wilson a little money--somethinglike ten thousand. He's coming on to settle upthe estate. Won't it be jolly to have him?"

"And how fine that he's come into a littlemoney. I can see him posting down StateStreet to the steamship offices. He will geta good many trips out of that ten thousand.What can have detained him? I expected himhere for luncheon."

"Those trains from Albany are alwayslate. He'll be along sometime this afternoon.And now, don't you want to go upstairs andlie down for an hour? You've had a busy morningand I don't want you to be tired to-night."

After his wife went upstairs Alexanderworked energetically at the greens for a fewmoments. Then, as he was cutting off alength of string, he sighed suddenly and satdown, staring out of the window at the snow.The animation died out of his face, but in hiseyes there was a restless light, a look ofapprehension and suspense. He kept claspingand unclasping his big hands as if he weretrying to realize something. The clock tickedthrough the minutes of a half-hour and theafternoon outside began to thicken and darkenturbidly. Alexander, since he first sat down,had not changed his position. He leanedforward, his hands between his knees, scarcelybreathing, as if he were holding himselfaway from his surroundings, from the room,and from the very chair in which he sat, fromeverything except the wild eddies of snowabove the river on which his eyes were fixedwith feverish intentness, as if he were tryingto project himself thither. When at lastLucius Wilson was announced, Alexandersprang eagerly to his feet and hurriedto meet his old instructor.

"Hello, Wilson. What luck! Come intothe library. We are to have a lot of people todinner to-night, and Winifred's lying down.You will excuse her, won't you? And nowwhat about yourself? Sit down and tell meeverything."

"I think I'd rather move about, if you don't mind.I've been sitting in the train for a week,it seems to me." Wilson stood beforethe fire with his hands behind him andlooked about the room. "You HAVE been busy.Bartley, if I'd had my choice of all possibleplaces in which to spend Christmas, your housewould certainly be the place I'd have chosen.Happy people do a great deal for their friends.A house like this throws its warmth out.I felt it distinctly as I was coming throughthe Berkshires. I could scarcely believe thatI was to see Mrs. Bartley again so soon."

"Thank you, Wilson. She'll be as glad tosee you. Shall we have tea now? I'll ringfor Thomas to clear away this litter.Winifred says I always wreck the house whenI try to do anything. Do you know, I am quite tired.Looks as if I were not used to work, doesn't it?"Alexander laughed and dropped into a chair."You know, I'm sailing the day after New Year's."

"Again? Why, you've been over twicesince I was here in the spring, haven't you?"

"Oh, I was in London about ten days inthe summer. Went to escape the hot weathermore than anything else. I shan't be gonemore than a month this time. Winifred and Ihave been up in Canada for most of theautumn. That Moorlock Bridge is on my backall the time. I never had so much troublewith a job before." Alexander moved aboutrestlessly and fell to poking the fire.

"Haven't I seen in the papers that thereis some trouble about a tidewater bridge ofyours in New Jersey?"

"Oh, that doesn't amount to anything.It's held up by a steel strike. A bother,of course, but the sort of thing one is alwayshaving to put up with. But the MoorlockBridge is a continual anxiety. You see,the truth is, we are having to build pretty well tothe strain limit up there. They've crowdedme too much on the cost. It's all very wellif everything goes well, but these estimates havenever been used for anything of such lengthbefore. However, there's nothing to be done.They hold me to the scale I've used in shorterbridges. The last thing a bridge commissioncares about is the kind of bridge you build."

When Bartley had finished dressing fordinner he went into his study, where hefound his wife arranging flowers on hiswriting-table.

"These pink roses just came from Mrs. Hastings,"she said, smiling, "and I am sure she meant them for you."

Bartley looked about with an air of satisfactionat the greens and the wreaths in the windows."Have you a moment, Winifred? I have just nowbeen thinking that this is our twelfth Christmas.Can you realize it?" He went up to the tableand took her hands away from the flowers,drying them with his pocket handkerchief."They've been awfully happy ones, all of them,haven't they?" He took her in his arms and bent back,lifting her a little and giving her a long kiss."You are happy, aren't you Winifred? More thananything else in the world, I want you to be happy.Sometimes, of late, I've thought you lookedas if you were troubled."

"No; it's only when you are troubled andharassed that I feel worried, Bartley.I wish you always seemed as you do to-night.But you don't, always." She looked earnestlyand inquiringly into his eyes.

Alexander took her two hands from hisshoulders and swung them back and forth inhis own, laughing his big blond laugh.

"I'm growing older, my dear; that's whatyou feel. Now, may I show you something?I meant to save them until to-morrow, but Iwant you to wear them to-night." He took alittle leather box out of his pocket andopened it. On the white velvet lay two longpendants of curiously worked gold, set with pearls.Winifred looked from the box to Bartley and exclaimed:--

"Where did you ever find such gold work, Bartley?"

"It's old Flemish. Isn't it fine?"

"They are the most beautiful things, dear.But, you know, I never wear earrings."

"Yes, yes, I know. But I want you towear them. I have always wanted you to.So few women can. There must be a good ear,to begin with, and a nose"--he waved hishand--"above reproach. Most women looksilly in them. They go only with faces likeyours--very, very proud, and just a little hard."

Winifred laughed as she went over to themirror and fitted the delicate springs to thelobes of her ears. "Oh, Bartley, that oldfoolishness about my being hard. It reallyhurts my feelings. But I must go down now.People are beginning to come."

Bartley drew her arm about his neck and wentto the door with her. "Not hard to me, Winifred,"he whispered. "Never, never hard to me."

Left alone, he paced up and down hisstudy. He was at home again, among all thedear familiar things that spoke to him of so